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Backlog.md – Markdown‑native Task Manager and Kanban visualizer for any Git repo

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Re: Backlog.md – Markdown‑native Task Manager and Kanban visualizer for any Git repo

#21

Post by thelittleone »

mrlesk wrote: post #2

I threw Claude Code at an existing codebase a few months back and quickly quit— untangling its output was slower than writing from scratch. The fix turned out to be process, not model horsepower. Iteration timeline ================== • 50 % task success - added README.md + CLAUDE.md so the model knew the project. • 75 % - wrote one markdown file per task; Codex plans, Claude codes. • 95 %+ - built Backlog.md, a CLI t…

I've had same experience. Taskmaster-ai was pretty good, but sometimes the agent ignored it as the project grew larger (can probably prevent that now using claude code hooks).

Trying this project today looks nice. I see you have sub-tasks. Any thoughts on a 'dependency' relation? I.e., don't do X if it is dependent on task A which is not complete.

FYI, there is a 404 in the AGENTS.md GEMINI.md etc pointing to a non existing README.md.

Re: Backlog.md – Markdown‑native Task Manager and Kanban visualizer for any Git repo

#22

Post by danpalmer »

I built myself a tool that does something quite similar. It's a single no-dependency Python script that parses "tasks.md" in the root of the repo which contains a Markdown table of tasks, then has basic support for BLOCKED/READY/DONE/CANCELLED, dependencies, titles, tags, etc.

For a project that is just for me, it's exactly what I need – dependency tracking and not much more, stored offline with the code. Almost all of the code for it was written by Gemini.

Re: Backlog.md – Markdown‑native Task Manager and Kanban visualizer for any Git repo

#23

Post by mrlesk »

unshavedyak wrote: post #14
mrlesk wrote: post #2

I threw Claude Code at an existing codebase a few months back and quickly quit— untangling its output was slower than writing from scratch. The fix turned out to be process, not model horsepower. Iteration timeline ================== • 50 % task success - added README.md + CLAUDE.md so the model knew the project. • 75 % - wrote one markdown file per task; Codex plans, Claude codes. • 95 %+ - built Backlog.md, a CLI t…

Would love more detail on your integration with claude. Are you telling claude to use backlog to plan X task? Feels like some MCP integration or something might make it feel more native? Though i've not had much luck in getting Claude to natively use MCPs, so maybe that's off base heh.

No mcp, just custom instructions.

When you initialize backlog in a folder it asks you if you want to set up agent’s instructions like CLAUDE.md. It is important to say yes here so that Claude knows how to use Backlog.md.

Afterwards you can just write something like: Claude please have a look at the @prd.md file and use ultrathink to create relevant tasks to implement it. Make sure you correctly identify dependencies between tasks and use sub tasks when necessary.

Or you can just paste your feature request directly without using extra files.

Feels a bit like magic

Re: Backlog.md – Markdown‑native Task Manager and Kanban visualizer for any Git repo

#24

Post by mrlesk »

danpalmer wrote: post #22

I built myself a tool that does something quite similar. It's a single no-dependency Python script that parses "tasks.md" in the root of the repo which contains a Markdown table of tasks, then has basic support for BLOCKED/READY/DONE/CANCELLED, dependencies, titles, tags, etc. For a project that is just for me, it's exactly what I need – dependency tracking and not much more, stored offline with the code. Almost all…

Yep. I’m happy to hear that more and more people are converging towards a very similar process as this ends up being the most productive.

Re: Backlog.md – Markdown‑native Task Manager and Kanban visualizer for any Git repo

#25

Post by mrlesk »

dayvough wrote: post #19

All I'm wondering is how did you secure the .md TLD?

Hehe. It was a veerry lucky situation.

I sent a message to someone telling that I was working on backlog.md and it turned the name into a link automatically.

I wanted to remove the link and I clicked on it accidentally and discovered that not only there was nothing on that domain but was not registered yet. I got the domain few mins later :)

Re: Backlog.md – Markdown‑native Task Manager and Kanban visualizer for any Git repo

#26

Post by mrlesk »

ttoinou wrote: post #15

Seems like a great idea. How would that work with multiple branches ? One task might be implemented in a different branch, we might want to have a global overview of all the tasks being coded in the main branch All data is saved under backlog folder as human‑readable Markdown with the following format task- - .md (e.g. task-12 - Fix typo.md). If every "task" is one .md file, I believe AI have issues editing big files…

1) How will it work with multiple branches? Simple: using git :) Git allows to fetch certain files from other branches including remote ones without checking out those branches.

The state is always up to date no matter if you are running backlog.md from main branch or a feature branch.

It works well when there are not many branches but I need to check if I can improve the performance when there are lots of branches.

Re: Backlog.md – Markdown‑native Task Manager and Kanban visualizer for any Git repo

#27

Post by jasir »

dayvough wrote: post #19

All I'm wondering is how did you secure the .md TLD?

It's the gTLD for Moldova, seems to have limited registrar availability[0] but there's no residency/association restriction like some countries impose so anyone can get one. I've seen markdown related projects use it here and there like obsidian.md

[0] https://tld-list.com/tld/md

Re: Backlog.md – Markdown‑native Task Manager and Kanban visualizer for any Git repo

#28

Post by mrlesk »

ttoinou wrote: post #15

Seems like a great idea. How would that work with multiple branches ? One task might be implemented in a different branch, we might want to have a global overview of all the tasks being coded in the main branch All data is saved under backlog folder as human‑readable Markdown with the following format task- - .md (e.g. task-12 - Fix typo.md). If every "task" is one .md file, I believe AI have issues editing big files…

2) AI Agents have issues editing larger files.

Correct. One of the instructions that ships with backlog.md is to make the tasks “as big as they would fit in a pr”. I know this is very subjective but Claude really gets much better because of this.

https://github.com/MrLesk/Backlog.md/blob/main/src/guideline...

You will notice yourself that smaller atomic tasks are the only way for the moment to achieve a high success rate.

Re: Backlog.md – Markdown‑native Task Manager and Kanban visualizer for any Git repo

#29

Post by mrlesk »

tptacek wrote: post #17

This is a good idea. But the screenshots you have show lots of tasks in a project; how are you dispatching tasks (once planned) to an agent, and how are agents navigating the large number of markdown task content you're producing without blowing out their context budget?

For task dispatch I just ask Claude: please take over task 123.

Because of the embedded custom instructions Claude knows exactly how to proceed.

Since I never create too big tasks, what blows most context are actually the docs and the decisions markdown files.

Re: Backlog.md – Markdown‑native Task Manager and Kanban visualizer for any Git repo

#30

Post by mrlesk »

kurtis_reed wrote: post #20

Part of this confusing trend of naming projects like files

It is so confusing that I had to add custom instructions for Codex telling him that Backlog.md is the project folder and not a file. He was wasting few mins trying to CAT Backlog.md instead of CD
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